1300 WAVZ

Date of Recording: 07.05.1967 Station: 1300 WAVZ New Haven (1260 – 1947-57) Format: Top 40 Branded: “Lucky 13” Featured Air Personality: Bob Terry (WAVZ) Contributor: Andy Bologovsky Total Time: 8:05 Airchexx Entry: 1,543 …Right here where the miracles are performed… Curator’s Notes: This was donated way back in 2003, when the site was only just over a year old! Bob Terry sounds very much like Frank Terry who worked at KFRC San Francisco around the same general time frame. There’s no information available on either Bob Terry or Frank terry in any of our usual research places, so if anyone can confirm yes or no, we’d sure appreciate it. WAVZ was using PAMS jingles in 1967 and if one flipped from WABC to WAVZ during this time period, they would...

Date of Recording: 05.30.1969 Station: 1300 WAVZ New Haven, Connecticut, USA Owner: Kopps-Monahan Format: Top 40 Featured Air Personality: Rusty Potts (WAVZ/WLNG) Contributor: Andy Bologovsky Airchexx Entry: 1,498 Comments: Many years ago, Andy Bologovsky sent in a whole collection of WAVZ airchecks which he digitized himself and sent as an audio CD. We posted most of the CD’s contents but had omitted a couple of historically important relics. Rusty Potts is heard here in late Spring, 1969. WAVZ is airing PAMS jingles and the reverb is stunningly on par with that heard on 77 WABC New York. This is a station very much in competition with the greatest Top 40 stations across New England. Our featured jock would go on to other opportunities, including a 40 year run on Sag Harbor’s ...

Date of Recording: 1973 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 1300 WAVZ New Haven, Connecticut, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Talent: Various Comments: As recordings go, one probably couldn’t get better than vynl. Programmer’s Digest was one of those trade publications that featured a different station each edition, and was sent out to various radio stations on a 33 1/3 LP. Featured on this edition, a composite of 13 WAVES and an entire day’s broadcast. This starts with a fantastic WAVZ contest promo, then it’s on to the Programmer’s Digest. Its a tribute to Program Director John Long’s genius and includes a ton of promos and special WAVZ contests.

Date of Recording: July, 1974 (Exact Date Unknown) Contributor: Andy Bologovsky Station: 1300 WAVZ New Haven CT Featured Air Talent: Mike Dean, Bill Rock, Brian Phoenix Comments: Here’s one sent in a long time ago. We like to re-post these from the early days of Airchexx, since after this long, they tend to get buried under hundreds of other posts. WAVZ is most certainly one of our favorite old ‘classics’! Contributor Andy Bologovsky presents this sixteen and a half minute tour of the Kopps-Monahan studios of 13 WAVZ. Its mid-Summer and the New Waves is sizzlin’ with a lineup of jocks who all made it to major market stations after their stay in New Haven. It’s an Oldies weekend, but its not exclusively Oldies, with some 1974 blockbuster hits heard in here alon...

Sounding like the East Coast version of Dr. Don Rose, Here’s Judge Harrigan with one liners, traffic reports, time checks and the hits – all the ingredients you’d expect from a major market morning show, but this is LOCALISM done right! On this particular day, there was a power outage in East Haven, and ConRail service was on-time!

There’s very little WE can say that conveys the excitement generated by 13 Waves during it’s heyday of the mid-late 1970s. Some of the best and brightest broadcasters in Southern New England graced the air on WAVZ – and a few of them have posted comments about this recording below. If you read the comments before listening, do yourself a favor now, and see why this AM station OWNED the New Haven market, at a time when AM stations were already in steep decline as music stations. Oh, if this had been put on the sister FM station, we’d be listening to 101 Waves instead of KC 101… but would that have been such a bad thing? We can only dream, I suppose. This recording is a bit choppy. It came to us that way from the skimmer. Featured on this composite: Mike Dean, B...

We’re back into the 1960s for this short clip of WAVZ New Haven. This is the Tracey show, although we’re not sure who Tracey is or where he went after WAVZ. One thing that sticks out on many of the WAVZ airchecks on this site is the frequency at which Railroad Salvage ads air. Many are :05 drops, some are live sponsorships, but it seems that Railroad Salvage was always heard on WAVZ. For those who don’t remember, Railroad Salvage was a bargain basement store, much like today’s Dollar General. There used to be many Railroad Salvage outlets all over New England. Today, there’s just the one in West Haven about a mile from the VA Medical Center. And one never hears them on the air anywhere. Another, from longtime Contributor Andy Bologovsky.

It took longer to write this summary than edit the audio for this slightly under one minute clip of Joe Hager on the “New Waves”. Courtesy of early Airchexx Contributor Andy Bologovsky, here’s another short look and listen to one of America’s great middle-market stations with a huge Major Market sound! WAVZ was one of a few Southern New England stations within earshot of all the big New York stations, like WABC, WNBC and Hartford’s WDRC. With stations like that competing for local listeners, WAVZ had to be something special. We have other WAVZ airchecks online and we invite you to listen. And comment.

Going back several years ago when Andy Bologovsky sent in a bunch of WAVZ CDs for us, here’s a recording that’s a bit confusing. Its labelled August 1974, and for some of the promos heard in this, it is likely from that date. However, we hear Ron Foster in the middle of the Top 100 countdown of 1969. No idea where that came from but we’ll include it here since it apparently was intended to be a part of this presentation. We’ll also hear Brian Phoenix, a promo for the movie “Walking Tall”, more Ron Foster in a live remote broadcast. A promo for the movie “Black Godfather” and a spot for Edward Malley’s (a store in New Haven). This is labelled “Tape 46”, apparently of our Contributor’s own collection. Originally sent in ...

From Contributor Andy Bologovsky, bits of promos and live shows from 7/3/73. The Gas crisis is on and ‘The New Waves’ provides tips on how to save energy. We hear actual airchecks from Mason Lee Dixon and John Long. This is a bit tough to listen to. Apparently recorded with a small cassette deck mic placed in front of a radio speaker, the sound is tinny. And if you listen carefully enough, you’ll hear a kid’s voice in the background. I think all of us recorded the radio in this manner when we were very young and just getting interested. I did – back in ’76 made a few low-quality tapes this way of WBZ Boston, which did survive into the 80s but certainly not long enough to make it to Airchexx (and that’s a shame). How many of our visitors did?

Mason Lee Dixon was a star in Louisville, KY – at 79 WAKY, from 1969 to 1972 prior to arriving in New Haven. He’d return there in the late 70s. In the Summer of ’73, WAVZ was red hot… this was John Long’s 13 Waves, with an airstaff of jocks, nearly all of whom would go on to even bigger and better places than New Haven, Connecticut. Listen to the imaging! The Top of Hour was done live, over the same bed used at WXLO New York (in 1978!), and the station featured one shotgun jingle (coincidently, also used at the aforementioned 99X!) along with a couple of variations. WAVZ had a big city sound to it, and was regularly written up in the various trade magazines then in publication. This is an original aircheck recorded by Andy Bologovsky, who has a large collectio...